Khmer literature festival was a very wonderful event that gives the chance for Cambodians to have more open ideas about Khmer literature. It was held in Battambang for 3 days. The purpose of this big event was to give more knowledge to Cambodian about Literature and the rare opportunity for readers to meet a famous author. We’ve met many fabulous and famous author including Mr, Tim Many, Ms. Pol Pisey, and more.

On the first day, we had a poem competition. There were three liger’s students that participated in the competition to win other older people. I was one of those three people. Two of the students in the first place (Angely Rose and Thul Vutha) among other adults. Even though, I didn’t win I was very proud to participate in this splendid opportunity. I am proud to share my poem that describes the beautiful light that is growing in Battambang province.

I was very contented with the skills I gained from this events on the second days. We got to listen to the educational and motivated speech about youth writing from amazing authors. In the second day, we had a lot of discussion and questions about Khmer literature including writing a poem, short story, long story, publishing book and more.

On the third day was more than what I’ve expected because a lot of Cambodian got to watch so many performances. Those heritages are beautiful and meaningful including Ken dance and Chapey Dong Veng. Besides that, there was a very outstanding performance that was presented by Phare Ponler Silapak. This beautiful performance had a dance and amazing flexibility show.

In general, This was one of the first Khmer literature events I’ve ever joined. I get to receive and exchange ideas about the future and growth of Khmer literature with the other people. One of the skills I love is about Graphic design(Designing book cover) which was presented by Cambodian. I would love to give a big thank to the people that work very hard to make this event happen.

How do I think about change?

Doing a survey in your own brain about a change from observing you can literally do it everywhere. Whenever I am traveling somewhere. The clear glass of the car can reflect the light that is growing in the country as well as the darkness of it. I can see how has Cambodia country work in a different way from other country develop the country in the world. I can see through my eyes about the culture and economy in this country. Thinking is good but after I think I always tell myself to take action on it. It is not easy to make a change because it needs time. My school which is Liger Leader Academy has provided me with thinking about the change a lot because we always go outside to explore the reality. The reality makes our life more realistic with knowing things that are happening around us. With all of the majors problem happening in the country, we as a part of humanity should participate to make our world a better place.

How did I try to promote and encourage change?

Sharation (Sharing and Exploration)

Once every 7 weeks, all the students are given the opportunity to speak out and share the knowledge of the exploration they have worked on. People who are willing to gain knowledge are free to come and listen to the presentation on the sharation day. Throughout the event, I have the opportunity to present share and acknowledge the change and problem we’ve helped and discover within those explorations. Those include as Geography of Cambodia book, historical symbolism, disability podcast, entrepreneurship, the network play and many more.

In every one of the event, I was able to promote and encourages changes thorough speeches, presentation, podcast and more. Those events, help and remind both Khmer citizen and foreigner about the possibility of change to make Cambodian and the world a better country in many fields.

How did I raise awareness about change?

“Woman can Be a leader” (Khmer Mun)

On the 2nd of May 2018, the Liger Leadership Academy host an event called “Khmer MUN”. It was Model United Nations but it is in the Khmer language. As the Khmer language is our first language, we want to preserved and learn about how to use it in professional circumstances. It was an amazing opportunity to come together to research and share opinion by representing a different country about gender equality. The topic is about “Women can be leaders”. Furthermore, my team and I have created a resolution using different sources, claused to show all of the possibility to fight justice in order to allow women to be leaders. During the event, against and in favor team discussed the suitable solution for the topics. In the end, I was really grateful to be a part of supporting and encourage women to be leaders in different field especially in a government that is mostly dominated by men.

How Did I make the possibility of change?

Girls in technology and Entrepreneurship (TEchnovation Cambodia)

Technovation is a program offering girls opportunity learning about technology and entrepreneurship. They are challenged to identify a problem in their community, and then solved it by developing a mobile app solution. It is also a chance for us to compete in national and international competition by pitching our ideas to judges and summiting them through the website. I have participated in this program for 2 years (2017/2018).

Farmer market Application

A major problem in Cambodia is poverty. After the Khmer Rouge, economic and many other fields of this country were destroyed. As the destruction remain, many of its survivors sill struggle from the damage the regime has done. According to data from the workforce in 2016, 45% of Cambodia work in the agriculture field. The farmers don’t have markets to sell their agricultural products, such as vegetables and fruit which can lead to poverty. Our app is created for farmers to post their agricultural products such as vegetables and fruits and customers can access to view and buy the products.

Click here to see our presentation

MEP Center presented by Five Infinities

In 2018, I’ve joined the program again and form a team called “Five Infinities”. We develop an app called MEP center which stands for Mechanical, Electricity, and Plumbing. It is created to allow customers to contact suppliers to fix their MEP problems and suppliers to find more customers to earn more profit.

It was a very successful competition and experience. One of the highlights is we went ICHING Decor company to present the idea of the app. The company said that the idea was fabulous and if we launch they will ensure to use it. It was a great time with the general manager of the company. We presented with the slide presentation and test the app with them. Most of the workers gave us some feedback to make our app better too.

On 20th May 2018 we have to compete among 11 teams in the national competition after we pass the mini-pitch competition. After the presentation judges were extremely happy about our idea. Shockingly, both of the mini-pitch and nation pitch, one of the judge have the same startup idea as us. This shows that our application can really help the problem because it does really exist in our society. Eventually, with all of the teamwork, collaboration, time, we won the 1st place in the junior division of the national grand prize.

To sum up, this program is one of the solutions to gender equality in the technology field. By encouraging women to participate in this program, I am sure that they will discover a new part of societies and themselves. Before I start this program programming is my least favorite subject. During these two year journeys, I’ve come to a point of enjoying coding and I was an app developer for both years. Now, I’ve tried to learn many new programming languages such as javascript, java, HTML, CSS and python.

Author: bopha

Khmer Literature Festival

How do I change Cambodia?